White Chocolate Buckeyes (White Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles)
Make easy white chocolate buckeyes: a twist on peanut butter truffles! This homemade candy with peanut butter and white chocolate is a simple treat.
Equipment
- 1 Size 100 scooper optional
- 1 medium-sized saucepan
- 1 Small saucepan or double boiler
- 1-2 Cookie sheets
- 1 9-by-9-inch or 8-by-11-inch pan
- Measuring cups and spoons
- 1 Spatula
- 1 Wooden spoon
- 1 Candy thermometer optional
- 1 Small heat-resistant bowl
- Wax paper
- Toothpicks for traditional buckeyes
Ingredients
- 3 cups sugar
- ¾ cup butter real butter is best in this recipe if you have it
- 5 ounces evaporated milk about 2/3 cup, and please do not use sweetened condensed milk
- 1½ cups creamy peanut butter
- 1 7-ounce jar of marshmallow creme
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
White Chocolate Coating
- 2 cups white chocolate chips or white chocolate bars broken into chunks
- 4 teaspoons shortening I use butter-flavored Crisco
Instructions
- Bring sugar, butter, and evaporated milk to a rolling boil in a large (mine is 2 and 3/4-quart-sized) saucepan on medium heat.
- Stir the mixture constantly.
- Keep stirring and boil for 4 minutes or until a candy thermometer reaches 234 degrees.
- Remove the pan from the heat.
- Stir in the peanut butter and marshmallow creme and keep stirring until both are melted. Add vanilla and mix well.
- Pour into pan, spreading to cover the pan completely.
- Cool for an hour before scooping the filling into balls for making the white chocolate peanut butter buckeyes or truffles.
- Line a baking sheet with wax paper. Using the 100-sized scooper, drop scoops of the mixture onto the baking sheet. If the mixture is too soft, stick the pan of peanut butter fudge filling in the freezer for 5 minutes. (You do not want to have the mixture harden too much or it will be difficult to scoop.) When the pan is filled with rounded scoops of peanut butter fudge, place it in the freezer for 15 minutes.
- While the peanut butter scoops are chilling, heat water in a saucepan. Place a mixing bowl over the hot (not boiling) water. Melt the white chocolate chips and shortening, stirring until smooth. Slow and easy is the key here. If you have to add a bit more shortening for a smoother consistency, go right ahead.
- If you are making white chocolate peanut butter truffles, save the scrapings from the pan (you can leave them in the pan) for using as little peanut butter dollops on top of the finished truffles for decorating purposes.
Traditional Buckeyes
- Remove the baking sheet with the chilled peanut butter scoops from the freezer.
- Poke a toothpick into the top of a peanut butter ball, lift the ball off of the sheet and swirl around in the white chocolate coating. There should be a spot of the peanut butter filling showing to make the coated buckey look like an eye.
- Repeat with remaining peanut butter balls.
For White Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles
- Drop frozen truffles, one at a time, into the melted coating. Stir quickly to coat. Remove with a fork or spoon, shaking off excess coating.
- Place coated truffles on the cookie sheet. Decorate with an optional topping like a small dollop of extra peanut butter filling scraped from the pan as a clue about what is inside the white chocolate coating.